


for he who fights monsters

by hallowgirl



Category: Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: And David's Anthony Crosland obsession starts young, Bittersweet Ending, But Ed is far too naive a little Labour-obsessed child, Comfort/Angst, Coming of Age, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, In which David wants to believe in things, Kid Fic, Kids building Dens, Kinda, Light Angst, Protective Older Brothers, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 20:32:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7546619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallowgirl/pseuds/hallowgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Your brother is too little, so he watches you build.</em>
</p>
<p>In which Ed can't stop believing in everything and David doesn't know if he hates that he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for he who fights monsters

**Author's Note:**

> First ever commissioned fanfic! This was written for the awesome [sederwiththemilibands](http://sederwiththemilibands.tumblr.com/) !

_And then they found a nice little house to live in together.....her and her brother._

_ -Unseen Skins, "Pop" _

_*_

Your brother is too little, so he watches you build. You pull a duvet off your bed the first few times, drape it over the space between your mattress and your chest of drawers, and you call it a tent. You're both good at calling things a name and believing it.

Your brother is good at believing it and you're good at pretending you believe it, and it's almost the same thing.

Your brother believes in everything, with his big dark eyes, and his little legs which try to toddle him about the room, his chubby hands grabbing at your books while you try to flatten a blanket on the floor.

He shakes his head and makes happy, _no-no-no_ noises when you tell him to go in the den, and he won't listen to reason, so you tell him the monsters are coming, and then his little face goes pale and his eyes go big and dark, and he sucks on his fingers hard, like he's trying to feed himself on courage.

You're not big enough to carry him, so you shunt him across the floor and curl up in your den together, with him half on your knee. His hair smells warm and soft and he pushes his cheek into your chest and says "Dav-a. Dav-a."

You nod, as if that's your name, because his eyes are big and dark and you don't want to see them fill with tears.

So you say, "Yes, that's right, that's right" and you sit with your brother, curled up in your den, with your book open and reading, to make him big and strong and clever.

He sleeps on your knee, the way he always does, and his fingers curl into your shirt, and he still says, _Dav-a, Dav-a, Dav-a._

*

You're too big to build dens, really, but Ed always wants dens.

He likes dens, because dens are "th-safe" and Ed listens to what your mum and dad say at the table, stories of guns and buildings collapsing and monsters that lurk in lands far away, monsters that hold onto facts and arguments and send cracks fissuring through the world.

Ed listens with wide, dark eyes and that night he appears at your door, teddy wedged under his arm, eyes big and dark and wet, lip trembling, saying "David, David, there's monsters" and you tell him it's not real, but he shakes his head, because he thinks it's real, even when you tell him how it can't be, you tell him facts and how monsters aren't real, there's just people.

But Ed believes in things, bigger things, and you don't know if that's frightening or not.

But you just pull back the covers and he climbs in next to you and holds on, and he tells you he wants to build a den.

You know that dens don't work, but he wants them to, and so you nod your head and ruffle his hair, and he falls asleep next to you, all angles and joints digging into your chest and your nose buried in his warm hair and his little hand fisted tight in your pyjama sleeve.

*

Ed thinks he's going to save the world. He builds up little towers of books, lining the pages up carefully, as though he can prevent any disaster if he gets the angles just right, irons out the details.

You could tell him it's impossible but you watch him anyway and the way his dark eyes sparkle when he lines everything up just right, when he builds little barricades around his world of books, a world built of letters and pages and stories where the hero always wins, where everyone ends up happy in the end.

He makes you play, too, and whenever you hear stories from your parents, about camps and guns and people they know who disappeared long ago, you always help him more, because Ed chews at his bottom lip when he hears those stories and his lisp gets worse and if he wants to believe that these pages and words can help, you don't know if you're being a good brother or not by letting him.

Ed toddles about the room and chatters about monsters and you don't know whether you should tell him again that they're not real, or whether you're right anymore.

*

The people who come to the house talk about monsters, when you and Ed press your faces against the bannisters to hear, Ed's hair tickling your cheek, his short, sharp little body tucked into your side, his breath hot and spasmodic on your neck.

They don't call them monsters but you hear stories of people's knees pushed into the pavement and gunfire exploding and tears smeared on people's cheeks and you think they're monsters anyway.

Ed's too little to grasp bigger words than _knees_ and _gunfire_ but he understands monsters.

He asks you to make bigger dens with him, and because his eyes are big and dark, and he runs to the window each night, checking for monsters, you do what he asks.

It's your job to protect him and even though you know monsters aren't real, Ed thinks they are, the same way he thinks he can change the whole world.

So you pull a duvet over your desk and this time you drag cushions inside and some biscuits and Ed curls up inside with you and you put his head on your chest.

"Th-afe" he says, lisp creeping in and falling amongst the words. "Th-afe."

You nod and when he falls asleep, breathing damp and warm against your chest, you promise you'll keep him that way, even if you know that monsters don't have claws and teeth and that duvets and blankets can't keep anything out that really wants to get in.

But Ed still believes it can.

*

When Ed comes home from school with tears smearing his cheeks, his glasses broken, and a cut streaking up one cheek, is when you start to build dens for you, too.

He doesn't know, of course. You clean him up, tug him into your bedroom, and pull the duvet over the desk.

You grow better at it. You pile cushions and pillows inside and biscuits and some of Ed's favourite books and even though some people would say you're a little too big for it now, you let him cuddle into your shoulder.

Ed likes to talk about the people who Dad said have changed things and he tries to read some of Dad's books but he's too little, his eyes crossing and lip pulling itself between his teeth at the words. You read him some, even though it's boring and you'd rather be playing football but Ed can't play football because Mum says he's got two left feet and after a bit, Ed starts babbling away his own stories, tugging at your sleeve.

At first, it's about monsters-monsters that creep at windows, pull down bedsheets, and how _the month-ters are bad, the monthterth hurt people,_ Ed's eyes all big, forehead pressed against yours. You make up your own stories about how if enough people get together and fight against the monsters, then they'll slink away and people will be safe, and you can keep Ed safe.

Ed falls asleep in your arms to that the first few times, when the overcast London sky seems to creep into your window, turning the daytime grey, so that the electric yellow of your desk lamp seems all the brighter, illuminating your little den away from the winter greyness of the world outside, your little den of light and books and biscuits and you and your brother, curled up together, asleep in your blankets.

*

After the first few times, Ed starts to talk about how you can help fight the monsters, the monsters who want to come in and take things away from people, and he talks less about their claws and teeth, and more about the things they'll take away, though he still thinks they'll come in through the windows.

You nod and when Ed asks how, you think, with your mind that Dad says is logical and Mum says is impressive, and you think and then you get a piece of paper and begin to write out how one day you'll rule the world.

*

You keep building dens, but now you start collecting books, books about people like Anthony Crosland who Dad doesn't like, but some of Dad's ideas might not work and you want to protect people from the monsters. You know the monsters don't have teeth and claws and people like Ed get hurt by them and it doesn't do anything if all the ideas you use can fall apart, be knocked down, smothering your heads like the blankets in your dens.

Ed listens a little more now, with his legs that are bigger and can carry him longer, and starts to chatter, making up stories that are part just babbling and part real things, about how they can give money to people who need it, and how they can make the people who do bad things to people

(Ed often scrubs at his eyes then and you grit your teeth at the thought of shoves in his chest, and his glasses splintering into shards.)

stop and maybe stop them doing it at all, and, and , and-

Ed gets carried away with his ideas and you're the one who calms him down, who slows his words, which are caught up in quickness and gabbling and lisping, and you're the one who writes it down, the way you always are.

*

Sometimes, you look at Ed and want to tell him, just for a moment, that this isn't how things work. That in the real world, the monsters with their claws and teeth can't just be broken by the people who want to do good things, and there sometimes aren't enough people who want to do good things, and sometimes, the monsters win.

The thing with Ed, is that he believes in things. He believes in things that are big and dramatic and changing. He believes in monsters under the bed and people who can save things and the idea that they can change the world with a handful of ideas and words and just the things they want.

Ed believes in things and he corrects your friends' spelling mistakes with a lisp in his voice and doesn't understand why he shouldn't and still grabs your hand when you walk across the street and doesn't understand why he shouldn't and wants to talk to the other children in his class about Dad's friends and what they say and the current state of the Labour party and he doesn't understand why he shouldn't.

Ed just doesn't understand, full stop, and you know it's your job to make him, that he needs to understand.

But he looks at you with his big dark eyes and lisps about _keeping people thafe_ and he appears in your bedroom doorway in too-big pyjamas and says _Don't like having my own room_ and he makes some of Dad's friends' eyes bulge with the words he knows, even as he still pushes a toy bus along the table.

He doesn't understand and you can never quite bear to make him.

*

Ed starts off with a story about two brothers who save the world and get rid of all the monsters and make things better and quickly it becomes two brothers who save the world and then run it and then it becomes two brothers who run the world.

He doesn't realise that only one person can run it and so he takes the pen from your hand, in your den with the blankets pulled tightly over your heads, and insists that the two brothers can run it together.

They can run it together and drive out the monsters, and wipe away the scratches and bite marks, and look after the poor people and then at the end, they can go back to their den, with their biscuits and chocolate and books and light and blankets, and be happy.

Ed draws a smiley face, and you feel like crying for a moment.

_Ed_ , you say, and he looks up at you with his big, dark eyes.

You look at him and think about his lisp and the way he's learning his Rubix Cube and the way he wants to play Manic Miner and the way he just doesn't stop believing things can get better.

He's too all-or-nothing and you don't know if a good brother would tell him.

But he's looking at you with his big dark eyes and you can't.

So you say _Nothing,_ and watch him go on reading. His big dark eyes fly over the page and his fingers whip the air like lightning and you crawl around him, so that you've got your chin on his shoulder, your arms around him.

You breathe him in, your little brother with his dark hair and dark eyes and all the bright things he holds onto, and you press his little cheek against yours'. You take a little bit of comfort in his warm, childish little body and his warm, childish little words, even though he doesn't know that's what they are.

You take a little bit of comfort in it.

*

You keep your arms wrapped around him, keep him nestled back against you and you whisper a promise, a promise that he can't hear, and you don't know if that makes it a real promise or not, but it's real to you.

You cuddle him, your little brother, and you promise that you'll always keep him safe.

And maybe it makes you a bit like him to think that. Maybe it makes you a little more all-or-nothing, a little too desperate, a little too believing.

You're not like that but Ed believes you are.

So you promise.

*

You nestle your chin over his shoulder. Outside, the overcast light creeps in, turns your bedroom grey at the edges. Downstairs, your parents talk and their words are filled with real monsters, ones that creep up and through the bannisters and into your bedroom, ones that know the stories of the outside world but you pull the blankets tighter and you don't let them near. You close your eyes and let Ed's little voice fill your head, little and strong and too trusting in itself.

You promise that you'll always keep him safe. In here, with blankets pulled over your heads, and the books that tell the stories Ed wants to hear spread over both of your laps, and the biscuits scattered on plates around you and that electric lamp that illuminates your whole room, the little world that you know, and the papers Ed's scribbling on, all the plans you both have to save the rest of the world, the one that's bigger than even you know, and yet Ed still thinks you can save it.

You promise you'll always keep him safe. And then you nestle your chin further over his shoulder, breathe in the scent of his hair, and take in the feeling of his angular little body, sharp and jutting into yours', until he shifts so that your heads are leaning against each other, foreheads warm and pressing.

*

You listen to Ed read, in your little den, in the middle of your blankets in the middle of your light in the middle of your room, and you pretend you don't feel, and maybe you don't, the monsters creeping in.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you liked it. :)


End file.
